Birth mother advocacy chapter launches in Louisville

On Your Feet Foundation could aid 6,000 Colorado birth mothers

By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
11/24/2012 06:06:00 PM MST

Updated:
11/25/2012 02:33:45 PM MST

Kayleigh Kennedy, 21, is the birth mother of Madeline Fenner and has visitation rights through an open adoption. Kennedy plans to help the thousands of other women and girls like her in Colorado by joining the On Your Feet Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping birth mothers achieve personal and financial independence after adoption. (Jonathan Castner/For the Camera)

Kayleigh Kennedy recalls the searing pain of parting with her only child last year.

Just 19, jobless, and living with her mother, Kennedy said she cried over a lunch at a Chinese restaurant as she and the baby's father signed away their parental rights to Madeline, their baby girl born in February 2011.

"It's super emotional but I knew it was the right thing to do," the Metro State University of Denver sophomore said last week. "I could have kept Maddie -- I could have done it. But I didn't because it was best for her. She deserves a stable household with two parents."

After placing her daughter with a family, Kennedy struggled to come to terms with her heart-wrenching decision. She found solace and a willing ear in Louisville resident Geri Glazer, a birth parent counselor for nearly 30 years and founder and former director of Creative Adoptions, a Wheat Ridge-based adoption agency.

"The one-on-one mentoring was very helpful to me," Kennedy said. "That's how I got through all the emotion and all the grief."

Kennedy, now 21 and an adopted child herself, plans to help the thousands of other women and girls like her in Colorado by joining the On Your Feet Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping birth mothers achieve personal and financial independence after adoption.

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Glazer launched the Colorado chapter of the 12-year-old organization -- only the third in the country -- out of her Louisville home last month.

Kennedy, who lives in Denver, will be On Your Feet's birth mother services coordinator and will also be a client.

"Nobody really understands a birth mother's point of view like another birth mother," she said.

Glazer said birth mothers are the "forgotten population," eclipsed by attention given to the adopted child and the adoptive family. Some birth mothers are stereotyped as drug abusers with out-of-control lives, too unstable to care for a baby, Glazer said. But in reality, she said, most are young women from poor circumstances with few vocational or professional skills who wrestle with debilitating self-esteem issues.

"This will be a place where they can come and get support," she said. "They can apply for scholarships, get their GED, and learn how to do a job interview."

Mentored by professionals serving in a volunteer capacity, Glazer said, birth mothers will be able to learn basic life skills that "allow them to soar." She estimates that up to 6,000 women in Colorado could be helped by services offered by On Your Feet.

The foundation will work with parents involved in traditional adoption situations as well as open adoptions, in which birth parents stay in contact with the children they place. Glazer said open adoptions can often help a child deal with the feelings of abandonment that may crop up later in life.

"Families come in all different shapes and sizes and colors," she said. "Kids learn that she's not your mother, she's your birth mother -- there's an appropriate title for her."

And birth mothers, she said, are recognized and commended for doing the right thing by their child -- providing him or her with a far better life than they might have had staying in an unstable home filled with stress and worry.

Kennedy is part of an open adoption herself. She sees Madeline once or twice a month and is close to the baby's adoptive parents. It's not always easy, she concedes, but Kennedy hopes her involvement with the On Your Feet Foundation will not only give her strength in her own life but in the lives of others going through a similar experience.

"I reached the point where I'm 100 percent confident in my decision and I can help other girls get to that point," she said.

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